The Flow State Herald: Edition 1, the Alchemist (Scorpio rising)
The Flow State Herald
10 to 17 October 2026 · Edition 1 · Vol. I · No. 1
The Alchemist's edition, for Scorpio rising
Read this first
- The week: The Libra New Moon opens the week on Sat 10 Oct, Venus squares Mars on the same day, and Mars trines Saturn on Fri 16 Oct.
- For you: Your 12th house, the Secret Garden, gets the New Moon, so let one private worry go.
- Do this: On Sat 10 Oct, spend twenty minutes alone and write down one worry you are ready to drop.
- Dates: Sat 10 Oct and Fri 16 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
The Sacrificial Code, Kali Malone, 2019. Nearly two hours. Listen on Spotify. Source for the story.
Kali Malone's 2019 album for iDEAL Recordings is nearly two hours of pipe organ played under a strict system of notes and durations that the composer set for herself.
The Laboratory Log: your sky this week
You are the Alchemist: this week the Libra New Moon falls in your 12th house, the Secret Garden and Chapel, and Venus, retrograde in your 1st house, squares Mars in your 10th house.
What private worry are you ready to drop before it turns into an argument?
The New Moon seeds something private · Sat 10 Oct, 11:50 am ET
THE SECRET GARDEN AND CHAPEL · 12th house · rest, dreams, solitude and what happens behind the scenes
A new moon falls in your house of rest and private life, so this start is private. Let one thing go without announcing it.
- Sat 10 Oct: Spend twenty minutes alone and write down one worry you are ready to drop.
New Moon in Libra, ☉︎ Sun and ☽︎ Moon together in your 12th house. ☉︎ Sun sextile ♃︎ Jupiter (Leo, your 10th house) is exact Thursday 15 Oct, 4:22 am ET (08:22 UTC).
The mirror and the throne disagree · Sat 10 Oct, 5:31 pm ET
THE DRESSING ROOM · 1st house · how you present yourself and start things
THE THRONE ROOM · 10th house · work, reputation and what you are known for
Venus, retrograde in your own sign until 14 November, squares Mars across your 1st and 10th houses: how you look and what you value pull against work. You may feel torn between how you look and your work. Do not answer a sharp message while you are angry.
- Sun 11 Oct: Reread any message you wrote while angry before you send it.
♀︎ Venus (retrograde, Scorpio, your 1st house) square ♂︎ Mars (Leo, your 10th house), exact Saturday 10 Oct, 5:31 pm ET (21:31 UTC).
Steady fire meets the old routine · Fri 16 Oct, 4:32 am ET
THE THRONE ROOM · 10th house
THE BATHHOUSE AND APOTHECARY · 6th house · daily routines, health and small remedies
Mars trines Saturn across your 10th and 6th houses: work energy reaches daily routines, and chores finally get done. Enjoy a finished routine.
♂︎ Mars (Leo, your 10th house) trine ♄︎ Saturn (retrograde, Aries, your 6th house), exact Friday 16 Oct, 4:32 am ET (08:32 UTC).
You may feel torn between how you look and your work. Do not answer a sharp message while you are angry.
Tarot
Look. A man in a red robe holds small scales and hands coins to two figures in blue and yellow.
Ask yourself. Coins pass from hand to hand here; are you giving, or receiving, this week?
Show the reading
Then read. Six of Pentacles, reversed, is giving and receiving out of balance: a favour owed or a role held. The New Moon in your Secret Garden lets it dissolve.
Look. Eight wooden wands fly diagonally across a clear blue sky, over a river and green hills.
Ask yourself. These wands are still in the air; where do you think they will land?
Show the reading
Then read. Eight of Wands, upright, is momentum already under way, with nothing landed yet. Beneath the Venus and Mars square, it says things are moving even while you feel torn.
Look. A cross-armed man sits under a tree beside three cups; a hand from a cloud offers a fourth.
Ask yourself. He sits with his arms folded; what offer might you be overlooking right now?
Show the reading
Then read. Four of Cups, upright, is attention: noticing what is offered rather than what is missing. With Mars in easy contact with Saturn, steadier energy lets you see it.
The thread. Even up the giving. Trust what is already moving. Take what is offered.
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 4th house, the Bedchamber, the room for home, family and where you come from.
This week. Pluto stations direct in Aquarius on Thursday 15 October at 10:40 pm ET (02:40 UTC Friday), after turning retrograde on 6 May. Modern astrology gives Pluto deep transformation, power, buried material and the endings that clear space for something new.
Mesopotamian. In an old Mesopotamian story, the goddess Inanna goes down into the underworld and dies there. She is brought back to life with the food and water of life.
Egyptian. Osiris was the god who ruled the Egyptian dead. Beside him, a dead person's heart was weighed against Maat's feather, Maat being the goddess of truth; he is shown with green skin.
Hindu. In the Katha Upanishad, an old Hindu text, a boy called Nachiketa is sent to the house of Yama, the god of death. Yama offers him wealth and long life, but he asks only what happens after death.
Correspondences
Colour: black
Modern sources give black to Pluto and dark red or maroon to Scorpio; both attributions are modern.
Metal: plutonium
The element plutonium, discovered in 1940 to 1941, took its name from the planet, which makes this metal link a young tradition and not an old one.
Gems: red spinel, garnet, obsidian, black tourmaline
Gem sellers made these attributions in modern times, and there is no documented classical use of them.
Plant: pomegranate
In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Persephone eats pomegranate seed from the hand of Hades, and it binds her to the underworld for a share of each year.
Foods: leeks, onions and mushrooms
Modern astrology sources list strong flavours like onions and leeks, and mushrooms, as Scorpio foods, which Pluto shares by association.
Part of the body: the elimination and reproductive systems
Modern astrologers assign these to Scorpio, with Pluto as its newer partner; this is symbolic and not medical.
Altar suggestions
Ideas, not rules:
- A piece of obsidian
- A black candle
- A dark red cloth
- A pomegranate
- A small dish of salt
- Patchouli oil
Vedic note: no Pluto
Classical Jyotish uses nine grahas and leaves Pluto out, so the associations above are Western and modern.
The Locked Cabinet: the museum object
Look first. A round gold brooch holds a plaited braid of dark hair under glass. A ring of cream pearls surrounds it, set between short gold rays edged in black. The braid is tied in a loose knot.
Context. A mourning brooch by Tiffany & Co., United States, 1868, of gold, pearls, black enamel and hair. The underside is engraved with the name Cornelia Ray Hamilton and the dates 1829 and 1867.
Notice. Look at the pearls, which are traditionally read as tears, and at the hair itself, chosen because it does not decay.
The deep dive
The Greeks did not like to name their god of the dead. Plouton means 'the rich one'; in Plato's Cratylus, Socrates says people prefer Plouton, 'giver of wealth', because the name Hades inspires fear. The Roman Dis Pater, 'Rich Father', may translate Plouton directly.
A terracotta fragment from Locri in southern Italy and dated to about 470 to 460 BCE, shows a bearded man and a younger figure pressed close together. The Met does not name the pair, so any identification is interpretation.
The modern chapter is documented. Clyde Tombaugh found the planet on photographic plates taken at Lowell Observatory in January 1930, and the discovery was announced on 13 March. In Oxford, eleven-year-old Venetia Burney heard the news at breakfast from her grandfather Falconer Madan, a former Bodleian librarian. Accounts differ on the day, between 11 and 14 March.
Venetia suggested Pluto. Madan passed the idea to Herbert Hall Turner, who cabled Lowell, and the director, Vesto Slipher, announced the name on 1 May 1930.
On 24 August 2006 the International Astronomical Union voted to make Pluto a dwarf planet, and its astrological meanings date from after 1930.
To think about: What are you calling by a gentler name?
Go further: Smithsonian Magazine: the naming of Pluto
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine: How Pluto got its name; APS News: Tombaugh's discovery of Pluto, 1930; Wikipedia: Venetia Burney; Wikipedia: Pluto (mythology); Universe Today: Pluto out of the planet club.
Movement
Take a long, slow walk, or hold a stretch longer than usual.
Look up. Saturn is up in the east after sunset, bright until sunrise, and Mars and Jupiter rise before the Sun, Jupiter in Leo and Mars near the Beehive Cluster, which shows well in binoculars. Venus is too low in the Sun's glow to see this week.
This week's calendar
- Sat 10 Oct: Hindu: Day of all ancestors (Mahalaya Amavasya). Source.
- Sun 11 Oct: Hindu: Nine days of the goddess begin (Sharad Navratri). Source.
- Sun 11 Oct and Mon 12 Oct: Jewish: Start of the month Cheshvan (Rosh Chodesh). Source.
- Mon 12 Oct: Canadian: Thanksgiving. Source.
- Wed 14 Oct: Eastern Christian: The Protecting Veil of the Mother of God (Pokrova). Source.
Navratri days vary by region and tithi rules.
Eat & wear
Eat. Roast leeks and mushrooms with pomegranate seeds. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the pomegranate seeds Hades gives Persephone bind her to the underworld for part of each year.
Wear. Oxblood, plum, black and red: dark trousers with a red top. Warm: oxblood and plum layers. Cool: the red top alone.
A line to keep
Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry.
Isaac Newton's English translation of the Emerald Tablet, Keynes MS 28, King's College, Cambridge
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:16805, met:255937, cma:147579, met:78186, met:324047, cma:122507); 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.
