The Flow State Herald: Edition 1, the Farmer (Taurus rising)
The Flow State Herald
10 to 17 October 2026 · Edition 1 · Vol. I · No. 1
The Farmer's edition, for Taurus rising
Read this first
- The week: The Libra New Moon on Sat 10 Oct starts a week of small repairs, and Pluto turns direct on Thu 15 Oct.
- For you: Your 6th house of daily routines gets the New Moon, so one small habit is worth changing.
- Do this: On Sun 11 Oct, put the things you use every day in one place and put the rest away.
- 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
Green, Hiroshi Yoshimura, 1986. About 40 minutes. Listen on Spotify. Source for the story.
Hiroshi Yoshimura recorded Green at his home studio over the winter of 1985 to 1986, almost at the same time as Surround for Misawa Homes.
The Farmer's Ledger: your sky this week
You are the Farmer: this week the Libra New Moon lands in your 6th house, the Bathhouse and Apothecary, and Pluto turns direct in your 10th house, the Throne Room.
Which daily habit is worth keeping, and which one costs more than it gives?
A new moon in the Bathhouse · Sat 10 Oct, 11:50 am ET
THE BATHHOUSE AND APOTHECARY · 6th house · daily routines, health and small remedies
A new moon is a small start, here in your house of daily routines. Look for a routine that has gone stale and replace it with something easier. Change one small habit at a time.
- Sun 11 Oct: Put the things you use every day in one place and put the rest away.
☉︎ Sun and ☽︎ Moon conjunct in Libra: New Moon, Sat 10 Oct, 11:50 am ET (15:50 UTC), in your 6th house
The Sun and Jupiter warm the Bedchamber · Thu 15 Oct, 4:22 am ET
THE BATHHOUSE AND APOTHECARY · 6th house
THE BEDCHAMBER · 4th house · home, family and where you come from
The Sun sextiles Jupiter, linking your 6th and 4th houses: daily routines meet home and family. One small comfort in the Bedchamber makes a routine easier to keep, so a new lamp or blanket may be enough.
- Thu 15 Oct: Change one thing in your bedroom, such as the lamp or the bedding.
☉︎ Sun sextile ♃︎ Jupiter, exact Thu 15 Oct, 4:22 am ET (08:22 UTC): Sun in Libra in your 6th house, Jupiter in Leo in your 4th house
Pluto turns forward in the Throne Room · Thu 15 Oct, 10:40 pm ET
THE THRONE ROOM · 10th house · work, reputation and what you are known for
After months of going backward, Pluto moves forward in your house of work and reputation. Expect a slow sense of which part of your work you want to keep.
♇︎ Pluto stations direct in Aquarius, Thu 15 Oct, 10:40 pm ET (Fri 16 Oct, 02:40 UTC), in your 10th house
Look for a routine that has gone stale and replace it with something easier.
Tarot
Look. A hand from a cloud holds a golden cup beneath a dove; streams pour into a lily pond.
Ask yourself. The cup is offered from a cloud; what would you let yourself receive?
Show the reading
Then read. Ace of Cups, upright, is an offer, not an order: a new, more tender way of caring for your days. That agrees with the New Moon seeding your Bathhouse.
Look. A woman in a flowered robe stands among grape vines and nine gold coins, a small bird on her hand.
Ask yourself. She stands alone in her garden; what comfort do you keep at arm's length?
Show the reading
Then read. Nine of Pentacles, reversed, is comfort held at arm's length. Beside the Sun's friendly angle to Jupiter, it asks you to tend rest rather than output.
Look. A figure with head in hands sits below a rose-patterned quilt, with nine swords across the dark.
Ask yourself. This figure sits up with worry; which of your worries is ready to loosen?
Show the reading
Then read. Nine of Swords, reversed, is worry loosening or turning inward. That agrees with Pluto turning direct in your Throne Room, where a long review of your standing eases into forward motion.
The thread. Accept what is offered. Rest before you produce. Let the worry loosen.
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 10th house, the Throne Room, the room for work, reputation and what you are known for.
This week. Pluto stations direct in Aquarius on Thursday 15 October at 10:40 pm ET (02:40 UTC Friday), ending a retrograde that began on 6 May. Modern astrologers read it as the planet of deep change, power and what has to be let go; it takes about 246 years to circle the zodiac and has been in Aquarius since November 2024.
Mesopotamian. In an old Mesopotamian story, the goddess Inanna goes down into the underworld. She gives up a piece of her clothing at each of seven gates, and arrives with nothing before her sister Ereshkigal, queen of the dead.
Hindu. The Katha Upanishad is an old Hindu text. In it, the boy Nachiketa reaches the house of Yama, god of death, refuses the riches he is offered, and asks what comes after death.
Norse. Hel is the Norse goddess who rules the land of the dead. When the god Baldr died, she would let him go only if every creature wept for him, but the giantess Thokk refused.
Correspondences
Colour: black
Modern sources give black, sometimes with dark red added through Scorpio.
Metal: plutonium
This is a modern link: the element plutonium was discovered in 1940 to 1941 and named after the planet. Vedic tradition has no Pluto metal at all.
Gems: garnet and obsidian
Dark garnet, obsidian and black tourmaline are modern attributions with no classical history behind them.
Plant: pomegranate
Hades hands Persephone pomegranate seed in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, and that is what binds her to the underworld for part of each year.
Foods: pomegranate, onion, leek
Pomegranate comes from myth; onions and leeks come from a modern list of Scorpio foods, the sign Pluto is said to co-rule.
Body: elimination and renewal
Modern astrology gives Pluto, with Scorpio, the organs of elimination and reproduction. The link is symbolic, not a health plan.
Altar suggestions
Ideas, not rules:
- A bowl of soil and barley seeds
- A leek or an onion
- A garnet
- A coin
- A sprig of cypress
- A beeswax candle
The Curio Shelf: the museum object
Look first. A deep blue-black bowl flares from a small, unglazed foot to a wide mouth. A thin band of metal binds the rim, and the glossy glaze stops short of the brown foot. The shape is simple: a cone with a gentle curve.
Context. A Jian ware tea bowl from Fujian, China, Southern Song dynasty (1127 to 1279), 17.8 cm across, rare for its size. Song tea was whisked to a white foam, which black bowls showed best.
Notice. Look closely at the reddish-brown streaks and spots in the glossy black glaze, which connoisseurs called 'hare's fur' marks on tea bowls.
Sources: Tea Bowl, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1948.206; Jian wares, Antique Asia.
The deep dive
For a farmer, wealth comes up out of the ground. The Greeks named the god of the underworld Plouton, 'the rich one'; Plato says in the Cratylus that people used it in place of Hades because the name Hades inspired fear. Traditional belief held that this god gave the earth's riches both above ground, as crops, and below it, as mined metal.
The planet came later. Clyde Tombaugh photographed the sky at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, in January 1930, and on 18 February spotted a moving point with a blink comparator, which flips between two photographs. The discovery was announced on 13 March 1930.
In Oxford, eleven-year-old Venetia Burney heard the news from her grandfather Falconer Madan, a former Bodleian librarian, and suggested Pluto. Madan passed the idea to the astronomer Herbert Hall Turner, who cabled Lowell, and the name was announced on 1 May 1930.
On 24 August 2006 the International Astronomical Union made Pluto a dwarf planet. New Horizons flew past it on 14 July 2015, carrying the Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter, built by students at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Astrological readings of Pluto as transformation came after 1930; the Persephone and pomegranate story is myth.
To think about: What in your life grew richer by being left alone?
Go further: How Pluto got its name, from Smithsonian Magazine
Sources: Venetia Burney (Wikipedia); Pluto in mythology (Wikipedia); Tombaugh and the discovery, American Physical Society; Pluto's name and the 2006 vote, Universe Today; Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter, LASP.
Movement
Take a slow walk to somewhere, such as a market or a garden.
Look up. Saturn shines in the east after sunset, and before dawn Jupiter in Leo and Mars in Cancer are up in the small hours; on Sunday 11 October Mars passes directly in front of the Beehive Cluster, which is best seen in binoculars. Venus is too low in twilight to see.
This week's calendar
- Sat 10 Oct: Hindu: The last day of the fortnight of the ancestors. Source.
- Sun 11 Oct: Hindu: The first of nine days for the goddess Durga. Source.
- Sun 11 and Mon 12 Oct: Jewish: The new month of Cheshvan. Source.
- Mon 12 Oct: Canadian: Thanksgiving. Source.
- Wed 14 Oct: Eastern Christian: The Protection of the Mother of God. Source.
Navratri dates vary by region, and Bengali Durga Puja counts some days a day later.
Eat & wear
Eat. Baked pears with honey and pomegranate seeds. The pomegranate comes from the Greek story of Persephone.
Wear. Rose, moss green, blush and tea brown: a soft rose scarf with a green knit. Warm: a moss-green jumper. Cool: a linen shirt.
A line to keep
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom-friend of the maturing sun.
John Keats, 'To Autumn', 1820
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 (cma:125978, met:343584, met:816523, cma:162427, met:247597, met:570645); 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.
