The Flow State Herald: Edition 1, the Courtier (Libra rising)
The Flow State Herald
10 to 17 October 2026 · Edition 1 · Vol. I · No. 1
The Courtier's edition, for Libra rising
Read this first
- The week: The New Moon falls in Libra on Sat 10 Oct, Venus squares Mars the same day, and Pluto turns direct on Thu 15 Oct.
- For you: It lands in your own 1st house, the Dressing Room, so your own choices come first this week.
- Do this: On Sat 10 Oct, choose an outfit for Mon 12 Oct and try it on.
- Dates: Sat 10 Oct and Thu 15 Oct.
Your birth chart is a castle: twelve rooms for twelve areas of life. Each week the planets open different doors, and this paper tells you which rooms are worth entering.
New to the rooms? They are explained on the castle page.
Album of the week
Comment te dire adieu, Francoise Hardy, 1968. A short LP, around half an hour. Listen on Spotify. Source for the story.
Released in 1968 on Disques Vogue, the ninth studio album by Francoise Hardy came out without a title on the sleeve and was named later after its best known song.
The Weighing Room: your sky this week
You are the Courtier: this week the Libra New Moon falls in your 1st house, the Dressing Room, and Pluto turns direct in your 5th house, the Garden and Ballroom.
What would you choose for yourself this week if nobody else had a say?
A New Moon in your own mirror · Sat 10 Oct, 11:50 am ET
THE DRESSING ROOM · 1st house · how you present yourself and start things
Your own sign gets the New Moon, so this start is about you. Notice what you would choose if nobody were watching. The Sun stays in your 1st house all week.
- Sat 10 Oct: Choose an outfit for Mon 12 Oct and try it on.
New Moon in Libra, ☉︎ Sun and Moon conjunct in your 1st house (the Moon appears in this line as the lunation only)
Venus backs into friction with Mars · Sat 10 Oct, 5:31 pm ET
THE TREASURY AND PANTRY · 2nd house · money, what you own and what feeds you
THE COURTYARD · 11th house · friends, groups and shared hopes
Venus, your own planet, squares Mars across your 2nd and 11th houses: what you own and value pulls against what friends and groups want. Expect a tug between the two this week.
- Sat 10 Oct: Turn down one invitation kindly and suggest another plan.
♀︎ Venus square ♂︎ Mars, Scorpio and Leo, exact Sat 10 Oct, 5:31 pm ET; Venus retrograde until 14 November
Pluto turns forward in the Ballroom · Thu 15 Oct, 10:40 pm ET
THE GARDEN AND BALLROOM · 5th house · play, romance, making things and being seen
Pluto moves forward in your house of pleasure, play and romance, after going backward through Aquarius since 6 May. Something you used to enjoy may start again.
♇︎ Pluto stations direct in Aquarius, Thu 15 Oct, 10:40 pm ET (Fri 16 Oct, 02:40 UTC); ☉︎ Sun sextile ♃︎ Jupiter Thu 15 Oct, 4:22 am ET
Notice what you would choose if nobody were watching.
Tarot
Look. Ten gold coins surround a family group with a white-bearded old man, in front of a town gateway.
Ask yourself. A family gathers among the coins; what have you inherited that you would keep?
Show the reading
Then read. Ten of Pentacles, reversed, turns family and coins into a question: what do you inherit, and what do you keep? Weigh that with the New Moon in your own sign.
Look. A figure with a bandaged head grips a wand before a row of eight upright wands.
Ask yourself. This bandaged figure guards the wands; what are you defending that you could offer?
Show the reading
Then read. Nine of Wands, reversed, is a guard kept up too long. For Venus squaring Mars, it asks what you are willing to offer without defending it first.
Look. A tall grey tower is struck by lightning; flames burst out and two figures fall past yellow flecks.
Ask yourself. The tower is struck but still stands; what would you quietly let fall?
Show the reading
Then read. The Tower, reversed, keeps the lightning in the sky: a collapse delayed or done quietly. With Pluto turning direct in your Ballroom, decide what you will let fall.
The thread. Weigh what you inherit. Offer without defending. Decide what falls.
Cards: Pamela Colman Smith, Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, 1909. Drawn at random from one shuffle.
Planet of the week
In your chart. Pluto is in your 5th house, the Garden and Ballroom, the room for play, romance, making things and being seen.
This week. Pluto turns from retrograde to direct in Aquarius on Thursday 15 October at 10:40 pm ET (02:40 UTC Friday), after backing across the same stretch of sky since 6 May. It settled into Aquarius for good on 19 November 2024 and is read as the planet of deep change, power, buried things and endings that clear the way.
Greek. Hades was the Greek god of the dead. The philosopher Plato writes in the Cratylus that his name frightened people, so they called him Plouton, the giver of wealth.
Egyptian. Osiris was the Egyptian god of the dead. He is shown with green skin, the colour of growing barley and of rebirth.
Mesopotamian. In a Mesopotamian myth, the goddess Inanna makes a journey into the land of the dead. At each of its seven gates she hands over a garment, and she arrives with nothing before her sister Ereshkigal, queen of the dead.
Correspondences
Colour: black, with dark red from Scorpio
Modern sources give Pluto black; dark red or maroon belongs to Scorpio, the sign it co-rules.
Metal: plutonium
This is a modern link: plutonium took its name from the planet after the discovery, and no ancient metal was ever assigned to Pluto.
Gems: obsidian, garnet, black tourmaline
Modern gem sellers give these dark stones to Pluto, and none has a recorded classical use for this planet.
Plants: the pomegranate
Persephone, in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, takes a pomegranate seed from Hades and is bound to the underworld for a share of each year.
Foods: onions, leeks and mushrooms
Modern folk lists give strong, underground foods to Scorpio, Pluto's co-ruled sign.
Body: the organs of elimination and reproduction
These are assigned to Scorpio, with Pluto as its modern co-ruler, as a symbol only.
Altar suggestions
Ideas, not rules:
- A small pair of scales
- A garnet
- Pomegranate seeds in two bowls
- A stick of myrrh
- A rose and a black ribbon
- A deep red candle
Vedic astrology: no Pluto
Nine grahas make up the classical Jyotish sky (Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu, Ketu), and Pluto, Uranus and Neptune are not among them.
The Porcelain Cabinet: the museum object
Look first. A flat rectangular plate of green-weathered copper, cut through with openwork. Two rounded shapes with fan-like crests sit side by side. Small holes are punched along the lower edge, and a rough border runs around the plate.
Context. The Met catalogues it as a copper scale balance, hammered from sheet copper in Chimú Peru, 12th to 15th century. The record gives no maker, and how the plate was used is not explained.
Notice. Look at the two mirrored shapes set side by side in the openwork and see how closely the left matches the right.
Sources: The Met, Copper Scale Balance, 12th to 15th century.
The deep dive
In March 1930, eleven-year-old Venetia Burney heard her grandfather, Falconer Madan, a former Bodleian librarian, read about the discovery over breakfast. She suggested Pluto, after the Roman god of the underworld. Accounts differ on the exact day.
Clyde Tombaugh had found the planet at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff on plates exposed on 23 and 29 January 1930, noticing the moving dot on 18 February with a blink comparator. The discovery was announced on 13 March 1930.
Madan passed the idea to Herbert Hall Turner, Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, who cabled Arizona. The name was officially adopted on 1 May 1930.
The god's own name was a polite one. Greek Plouton means the rich one, and Plato says in the Cratylus that people prefer it to Hades, because Hades inspires fear. The Romans had Dis Pater, Rich Father.
On 24 August 2006 the International Astronomical Union voted that Pluto is a dwarf planet. New Horizons flew past it on 14 July 2015, carrying a student-built dust counter.
To think about: What would you call a thing you are afraid to name?
Go further: How Pluto got its name (Smithsonian Magazine)
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, how Pluto got its name; APS News, Tombaugh's discovery of Pluto, 1930; Pluto (mythology), on the names Plouton and Dis Pater; Scientific American, on Venetia Burney; University of Colorado LASP, Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter.
Movement
Dance, or walk slowly with someone. Try standing on one leg for a count; Libra is the sign of balance.
Look up. Saturn shines in the east after sunset at its brightest of 2026, just after its opposition on 4 October. Mars is up around 1 am, passing in front of the Beehive Cluster in Cancer on 11 October, best in binoculars. Venus is too low to see this week.
This week's calendar
- Sat 10 Oct: Hindu: Mahalaya, when food is offered to the ancestors. Source.
- Sun 11 Oct: Hindu: Navratri begins (Ghatasthapana). Source.
- Sun 11 Oct: Jewish: the new month of Cheshvan begins. Source.
- Mon 12 Oct: Canadian: Thanksgiving. Source.
- Wed 14 Oct: Eastern Christian: Pokrova, the feast of Mary's veil. Source.
Hindu dates differ by region and by how each panchang counts the lunar day, so check your own community's calendar.
Eat & wear
Eat. Roast squash or carrots on yoghurt or tahini, with pomegranate seeds and mint. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hades gives Persephone a pomegranate seed.
Wear. Dusty rose, blush, cream and pale leaf green: a rose silk blouse. Warm: add a soft wrap. Cool: the silk alone.
A line to keep
Joy and Woe are woven fine, A Clothing for the soul divine.
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence, c. 1803
How this was made. The sky is calculated with the Swiss Ephemeris, tropical zodiac, whole-sign houses from the rising sign. Times are ET with UTC in brackets, for the window from Saturday 10 October 11:50 am ET (15:50 UTC) to Saturday 17 October 11:50 am ET. Tarot cards are drawn at random from one shuffle.
Pictures are public domain or CC0 from museum open access collections (met:315366, met:252973, met:435740, met:838319, met:197119, met:570658); the mother of pearl band is cropped from The Met object 40526.
The paper is for reflection and enjoyment and is not medical, financial or legal advice.
