The Flow State Herald: Edition 3, the Farmer (Taurus rising)
The Flow State Herald
24 to 31 October 2026 · Edition 3 · Vol. I · No. 3
The Farmer's edition, for Taurus rising
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.
Keats, Endymion, Book I (1818), text
Read this first
- The week: Venus returns to Libra on Sun 25 Oct, then the Full Moon and the Sun square Pluto fall on Mon 26 Oct.
- For you: THE GREAT HALL · 7th house: partners and clients.
- Dates: Sun 25 Oct, 5:09 am ET; Mon 26 Oct, 12:11 am ET and 8:11 am ET.
New here? Your chart is a castle of twelve rooms, explained on the castle page.
Album of the week
Hosono House, Haruomi Hosono, 1973. 32 minutes. Album history.
Hosono recorded his first solo album at his home in Sayama, Saitama, from 15 February to 16 March 1973, after his band Happy End broke up, with a 16-track console set up in the living room. It came out in Japan on 25 May 1973, and Light in the Attic's 2018 reissue was its first release outside Japan.
The Farmer's Ledger: your sky this week
You are the Farmer, and the Full Moon lands in your own sign this week while Venus, your ruler, turns from partners to daily routine.
Venus, your chart ruler, is retrograde and backs out of Scorpio into Libra on Sun 25 Oct at 5:09 am ET, moving from your 7th house of partners into your 6th house of routines and health. It ends the week in Libra. Early on Mon 26 Oct, at 12:11 am ET, the Full Moon in Taurus falls in your 1st house, opposite the Sun in Scorpio, in your 7th house, so you and one close partner are the subject of the lunation. At 8:11 am ET that morning the Sun squares Pluto, with the Sun in your 7th house and Pluto in Aquarius, in your 10th house of work and reputation. Mercury, retrograde in your 7th house all week, is a reason to reread anything agreed with one person.
What would a partner or client say about how you come across, if you asked them on Monday?
Sun 25 Oct
Venus returns to Libra · Sun 25 Oct, 5:09 am ET (09:09 UTC)
THE BATHHOUSE AND APOTHECARY · 6th house · daily routines, health and small remedies
Retrograde Venus backs out of Scorpio and returns to Libra, so for Taurus she moves from the 7th house of partners into the 6th, the house of daily routines, health and small remedies.
In the Bathhouse and Apothecary the questions are small: what you eat, when you sleep, which remedy is actually in the cupboard. Venus retrograde may reopen a routine you set up in a hurry, such as the weekly shop or the bedtime hour.
♀︎ Venus (retrograde) in Libra, your 6th house
Mon 26 Oct
The Full Moon lights you and your partner · Mon 26 Oct, 12:11 am ET (04:11 UTC)
THE DRESSING ROOM · 1st house · how you present yourself and start things
THE GREAT HALL · 7th house · partners, close one-to-one relationships
A lunation about you and one other person: the Full Moon, the Hunter's Moon, falls in Taurus, in the 1st house of self-presentation and new starts, and opposes the Sun in Scorpio, in the 7th house of partners.
The Dressing Room and the Great Hall are both lit at once. A partner, client or friend may point out something about how you come across that you hadn't noticed, or had noticed and not mentioned.
☽︎ Moon Full Moon in Taurus, your 1st house, opposite ☉︎ Sun in Scorpio, your 7th house
Mon 26 Oct
The Sun squares Pluto · Mon 26 Oct, 8:11 am ET (12:11 UTC)
THE GREAT HALL · 7th house
THE THRONE ROOM · 10th house · work, reputation and what you are known for
Pluto in Aquarius, in your 10th house of work and reputation, takes a square from the Sun in Scorpio, in your 7th house of partners. Close relationship meets public role, with Pluto adding power and control.
In the Great Hall, one person wants something from you that the Throne Room can barely spare: time, credit or a say in a decision. It may be a partner's expectation or a client's, and the useful fact is whose terms were agreed and whose were only assumed.
☉︎ Sun in Scorpio, your 7th house, square ♇︎ Pluto in Aquarius, your 10th house
Mercury, retrograde in your 7th house all week, is a reason to reread anything agreed with one person.
Tarot
Self-neglect, imbalance, overgiving. The Queen of Pentacles is the card of generous provision: a person who keeps the home, the table and everyone's needs in order. Reversed, she gives until her own supply runs low. With Venus returning to Libra on Sunday, what is worth planting starts with whatever you have neglected while looking after everyone else.
Friendship, celebration, community. The Three of Cups is the card of friendship and shared celebration: people who lift each other up and make time to be together. Upright, it is easy and generous. The Full Moon in Taurus on Monday falls on your own sign, and the friendships that need tending are the ones that feed you back.
Restlessness, burnout, unfinished rest. The Four of Swords is the card of deliberate rest, a pause to let the mind recover. Reversed, the rest is cut short and the mind keeps working. When the Sun squares Pluto on Monday, what deserves enjoying is the break you keep postponing, and it will not arrive until you stop scheduling work around it.
Cards: Pamela Colman Smith, Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, 1909.
Planet of the week
Venus is retrograde and, on Sunday, crosses back from Scorpio into Libra.
In Chinese astronomy Venus is Taibai, the Great White. Folk religion and Taoism also make the planet a god, Taibai Jinxing, the Great White Golden Star. The 16th-century novel Journey to the West has him as an old man and an envoy of the Jade Emperor, sent to summon the monkey Sun Wukong to Heaven, where Sun Wukong is offered a post. He returns in later chapters as a go-between. Details of the story are on Wikipedia's Taibai Jinxing page.
The Maya followed Venus in the Dresden Codex, whose table runs a 584-day cycle (source).
Museum object
A black tea bowl with straight sides, a slightly wavy rim and a small foot ring. The glaze is dull rather than glassy, pitted in places, with reddish-brown flecks on the outside and a reddish-brown tone inside the rim where the black runs thin.
The Met's record dates it to the early 17th century, in Japan, and lists it as earthenware with black Raku glaze. No maker is named. Raku bowls are shaped by hand rather than thrown on a wheel, fired at a low temperature and taken from the kiln while still hot. Tradition links the style to the potter Chōjirō and the tea master Sen no Rikyū in the later 1500s.
The wavy rim is easy to miss in a photograph. Looking along the top edge, it dips and rises a few times, which is what hand-shaping leaves behind.
The long read
In 1507, under Motecuhzoma II, the Mexica held the last New Fire ceremony, Toxiuhmolpilia, "the Binding of the Years". In the days before it, according to World History Encyclopedia, households put out every fire, swept their rooms, threw away old hearthstones, cooking utensils and clothes, and tied bundles of 52 reeds, one for each year of the cycle ending. Then they waited, many on rooftops, in silence.
Why 52, and why watch the Pleiades? The Mexica kept a 260-day ritual count beside a 365-day solar year, and the two start together again only after 18,980 days, which is 52 solar years or 73 ritual rounds (Wikipedia). Priests climbed Huixachtlan, the Hill of the Star, now Cerro de la Estrella in Mexico City, and watched the Pleiades, Tianquiztli, usually glossed as "marketplace", cross the meridian at midnight. León-Portilla, citing Cecelia Klein, ties the drilling of the fire to that crossing.
Sahagún's Florentine Codex, Book 7, records the dread that the sun would not rise again and that the Tzitzimime, star demons, would come down and devour people. How the Tzitzimime should be read is still argued. A fire was then kindled on the chest of a sacrificed captive, and runners carried burning pine torches from the Huitzilopochtli shrine on the Templo Mayor to every hearth, as the Museo del Fuego Nuevo describes it.
For an ordinary household the ceremony ended in its own kitchen, with a new flame in a hearth that had been cleared out. The Pleiades sit in Taurus, where the Full Moon falls on Mon 26 Oct. That link is astronomical, not something the sources state.
Go further: Museo del Fuego Nuevo, Mexico City
This week's calendar
- Sat 24 Oct: Jewish: Shabbat Lech-Lecha: Congregations read the passage in Genesis where Abram is told to leave his country for a land he will be shown. Source.
- Sun 25 Oct: Hindu: Sharad Purnima: Families leave kheer, a milk and rice pudding, in the moonlight, eat it next morning and light lamps for Lakshmi. Source.
- Mon 26 Oct: Buddhist: Pavarana Day: The rains retreat ends with monks inviting one another to name any faults, and lay people offer robes and light lamps. Source.
Take this with you
If you had to clear out the kitchen and start again from one flame, which pot would you keep?
Border: Box decorated with flowers and clouds, Korea, 18th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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.
