The Flow State Herald: Edition 2, Gemini the Messenger
The Flow State Herald
17 to 24 October 2026 · Edition 2 · Vol. I · No. 2
The Messenger's edition, for Gemini rising
Read this first
- The week: Venus squares Pluto on Tue 20 Oct, the Sun enters Scorpio on Fri 23 Oct, and Mercury turns retrograde on Sat 24 Oct.
- For you: The Bathhouse and Apothecary, 6th house: all three events land in your daily routines, so errands and small messages carry the week.
- Do this: Tue 20 Oct: Write down the sentence you keep rewording, cut it to one line and stop.
- Dates: Tue 20 Oct, 2:56 am ET (06:56 UTC); Fri 23 Oct, 5:38 am ET (09:38 UTC); Sat 24 Oct, 3:12 am ET (07:12 UTC).
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 busy this week.
New to the rooms? They are explained on the castle page.
Album of the week
Os Mutantes, Os Mutantes, 1968. Debut album on Polydor. Source.
The São Paulo band was formed in 1966 by brothers Arnaldo and Sérgio Dias Baptista with Rita Lee. It was recorded between December 1967 and January 1968 at Philips Studios, produced by Manoel Barenbein and released in June 1968. It opens with "Panis et Circenses", a Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso song first heard on the Tropicália compilation.
The Morning Post: your sky this week
You are the Messenger, and the week's headline is Mercury turning retrograde on Sat 24 Oct, 3:12 am ET, in the room where your errands and routines live.
Which message has sat in your drafts long enough that sending it plainly beats polishing it again?
Venus squares Pluto · Tue 20 Oct, 2:56 am ET
THE BATHHOUSE AND APOTHECARY · 6th house · daily routines, health and small remedies
THE OBSERVATORY TOWER · 9th house · travel, beliefs, higher learning and the big picture
Venus, moving backwards in Scorpio, squares Pluto in Aquarius. That links your 6th house of daily routines with your 9th house of beliefs and the big picture. A habit, a chore or a health fad bumps into a firm conviction about how things ought to go, and a pointed conversation is likely to follow.
- Tue 20 Oct: Write the sentence you keep rewording about a routine or a belief, shrink it to a single plain line, and send it or save it as it stands.
♀︎ Venus, retrograde in Scorpio, 6th house, square ♇︎ Pluto in Aquarius, 9th house · exact Tue 20 Oct, 2:56 am ET (06:56 UTC)
The Sun enters Scorpio · Fri 23 Oct, 5:38 am ET
THE BATHHOUSE AND APOTHECARY · 6th house
The Sun leaves Libra, your 5th house of play and romance, and enters Scorpio, your 6th house. Attention moves from pleasure and company to errands, schedules, sleep and small repairs. Chores and arrangements shared with other people become the topic that needs words, and a plain question settles most of them.
- Fri 23 Oct: Make a tray of the small things you reach for when tired, such as tea, plasters and a favourite pen, and keep it where you will see it.
☉︎ Sun enters Scorpio, 6th house · exact Fri 23 Oct, 5:38 am ET (09:38 UTC)
Mercury turns retrograde · Sat 24 Oct, 3:12 am ET
THE BATHHOUSE AND APOTHECARY · 6th house
Mercury, the planet of messages and errands, turns retrograde in Scorpio, in your 6th house, and seems to travel backwards through your routines. Old tasks, appointments and messages about them come back for a second look. Crossed wires and small delays are common, so details are worth confirming.
- Fri 23 Oct: Talk to one person about the next plan you share, such as a booking or a pick-up, and ask them to reply in writing with the time and place.
☿︎ Mercury turns retrograde in Scorpio, 6th house · exact Sat 24 Oct, 3:12 am ET (07:12 UTC)
Old tasks, appointments and messages about them come back for a second look.
Tarot
Look. The picture is upside down: a young man in a green tunic grips one long staff against six others.
Ask yourself. Which of the six staffs would you put down first if you could?
Show the reading
Then read. Seven of Wands, reversed. Defending every position wears you out. With Venus squaring Pluto, one small concession keeps the conversation going. Make your point once, plainly.
Look. Upside down, an armoured figure lies with hands pressed together beneath three hanging swords and a stained glass window.
Ask yourself. Would you stay lying under the swords or get up and look through the window?
Show the reading
Then read. Four of Swords, reversed. You've put off resting. The Sun enters your 6th house, daily work and routines, on Friday, so ask for help with the errand list before you add to it.
Look. Upside down, an armoured rider on a white horse gallops, sword pointing down, red plume streaming past bent trees.
Ask yourself. How fast would you be talking if you were riding this horse?
Show the reading
Then read. Knight of Swords, reversed. Words get out before the facts do. Mercury turns retrograde in your 6th house on Saturday, so reread before you send and listen before you answer.
Cards: Pamela Colman Smith, Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, 1909.
Planet of the week
In your chart. Mercury sits in your 6th house, the Bathhouse and Apothecary, so it works on errands, schedules, sleep and the small repairs of an ordinary week.
This week. Mercury moves forward through Scorpio until it turns retrograde on Sat 24 Oct, 3:12 am ET (07:12 UTC), and it is retrograde when this edition closes.
Hindu. Budha, the planet Mercury, is the son of Soma, the Moon god, and Tara, the wife of Brihaspati, the teacher of the gods. Soma carried Tara off and a war followed until Brahma stepped in; Tara admitted the child was Soma's, and the boy was named Budha, "the wise" (source).
Norse. English Wednesday means Woden's day, a translation of the Latin dies Mercurii, because Roman writers matched Mercury with Odin (source). In Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, Odin wins the giant Suttungr's mead of poetry and flies it back to the gods as an eagle, spilling a little for human poets (source).
Chinese. In Chinese star lore Mercury is Chenxing, the planet of Water, which belongs to the north and to the Black Tortoise, a tortoise wound with a snake that guards the northern sky (source).
The Treasure Drawer: the museum object
Look first. A small stone parrot with a rust-red chest and a green tail perches in a green enamel ring, held up by a thin silver stem above a round silver dish. It stands about 15 centimetres tall.
Context. The House of Fabergé made it in St. Petersburg between 1896 and 1903 with the workmaster Mikhail Perkhin. Fabergé liked native Russian hardstones such as agate and jasper for desk pieces.
Notice. Look at the place where the stone turns from red to green along the body, and at how thin the enamel ring is beside it.
The deep dive
A book signed with a grand name was believed older than Moses and Plato for generations, until a close reader checked its Greek.
The name is the first clue. Hermes Trismegistus, "Hermes the Thrice-Greatest", joins the Greek messenger god Hermes to Egyptian Thoth, scribe of the gods, whom Greeks in Egypt treated as one figure. Books were then written under that famous name.
Around 1460 a manuscript carrying an incomplete Greek Corpus Hermeticum turned up in Florence. Cosimo de' Medici had Marsilio Ficino put it into Latin at once, before his Plato, and the translation dates to 1463. Ficino took the author for a wise Egyptian priest older than Plato. That was a misdating.
In 1614 Isaac Casaubon, a Swiss-born scholar, argued from the Greek style and content that the texts belong to the first centuries CE. Scholars now put them somewhere between 100 and 300 CE. Casaubon was not the first doubter, and some writers kept believing in an older origin. The historian Frances Yates called 1614 a watershed.
To think about: Would a famous name change how closely you read?
Go further: Britannica on Hermes Trismegistus
Sources: Britannica, Hermes Trismegistus; Bryn Mawr Classical Review; Source Library, Isaac Casaubon.
This week's calendar
- Sat 17 Oct: Jewish: Shabbat Noach, the Sabbath when the Torah portion about Noah, the ark and the rainbow covenant is read. Source.
- Mon 19 Oct: Hindu: Maha Navami, the ninth day of Navratri, brings Ayudha Puja, when tools and instruments are honoured. Source.
- Tue 20 Oct: Hindu: Dussehra, or Vijayadashami, ends the nine days of Navratri, and in many places effigies of Ravana are burned. Source.
- Fri 23 Oct: Chinese: Frost's Descent, the last solar term of autumn, begins at 5:38 am ET (5:38 pm in Beijing). Source.
A line to keep
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.
Proverbs 25:11, King James Version.
How this was made
Times are Eastern (ET), with UTC in brackets. The sky is calculated with the Swiss Ephemeris. Pictures come from museum open access collections and are credited in each caption. For reflection and enjoyment, not medical, financial or legal advice.
