Astrology of the Week Ahead with Chani Nicholas - The Week of April 21st, 2025: The power of frustration

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Episode 227In this podcast, New York Times best-selling author and astrologer Chani Nicholas discusses the astrology of the week and what it might mean for us all.The astrology of the week of April 21st, 2025, aggravates us into taking action. As the planets of boundaries and unity link up, our calls for connection get a structural boost. Plus, Mars and Pluto spur us to tackle unfair power dynamics and anything that’s rotting beneath the surface. And there’s a New Moon, which gives us a clean slate to work with all this charged energy. For the next seven days, friction is our greatest motivator.Let’s get into it.This episode covers:The Sun’s square to Mars on Sunday, April 20thSaturn’s conjunction with the North Node on Monday, April 21stThe Sun’s square to Pluto on Wednesday, April 23rdVenus’ conjunction with the North Node on Wednesday, April 23rdVenus’ conjunction with Saturn on Thursday, April 24thMars’ opposition to Pluto on Saturday, April 26thThe New Moon in Taurus square Mars and Pluto on Sunday, April 27thThis episode was recorded on 03/27/2025.For more, check out your free daily horoscope on the homepage of the CHANI app — now on iOS and Android.The music featured in the podcast was created by Latashá.

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other to ourselves, to the world around us, kind of life. So let us know how you like it. Enjoy. Hello and welcome. This is the astrology of the week ahead podcast. I'm your host, your Astro, bestie, Channy, Nicholas. In this episode, we are looking at the week of April 21st. Okay, y'all, there are two major themes going on this week that are very very, very, you know, different than each other. So on one side, we have a carryover from Sunday the 20th. So Sunday the 20th, something really annoying and aggravating and maybe even initiating is happening. The sun is making a square to Mars. And that's how we start the week. We start the week with this vibe of irritation.

and also on another note, a heightened sense of responsibility. Because at the same time, Saturn, planet of responsibility and rules and the way things are done, is making a conjunction with the North Node, all in Pisces. So a Saturn North Node conjunction heightens and makes bigger all kinds of Saturnian issues. Now, Saturn is a planet of stopping things, of slowing them down, of halting, and of saying like, this is wrong, this is incorrect, this you have to go back four steps, absolutely not, sit down, no. Saturn loves to say no, and Saturn loves to give a critique. And Saturn is all about boundaries and structure and the right way to do something. So when Saturn is going through a situation

in the sky where its influences are a little bit on overdrive, which is what happens on Monday, there's just this kind of like stern vibe in the air. Now, on the other side of things, we've got the sun making a square to Mars or just leaving a square to Mars, which is really, again, agitating and makes us want to do something. And so there's this desire to do something to figure out what is hurting, like what is that pain and is there like a pebble in my shoe? Like, what is going on or something is really annoying or aggravating me? And it's making me want to spur myself into action, to go into action. And then Saturn is also heightened at the same time. So there's this real kind of stop and go feeling in the

beginning of the week. And what happens next is equally as friction oriented. The sun moves from a square to Mars to a square to Pluto, which is, is aggravating, agitating something about a power struggle or a power dynamic, which gets fully teased out by the end of the week. By Saturday, the 26th of April, there is a circle on the calendar it moment happening. Mars is making an opposition to Pluto. So what's really going on is that in the beginning of the week, on Sunday and into Wednesday, the sun is how. highlighting is picking up on the vibes. It's kind of like, imagine that there are two formidable foes locked in a room together and they are about to go at it. And you walk into the room and you're like,

whoa, this feels really tense. What is going on? Like, what did I walk into? How do I walk out of this? How do I like Homer Simpson into the bushes and pretend like I was never here? That's what the sun does. And so we can't not know what's happening, right? The sun is an illuminating force. And so it's a quick transit. Like it doesn't last long. It's not like a super big deal. It's just like, ooh, that's annoying. And oh, that looks possibly even like a little ugly. Pluto definitely represents things that are horrific or ugly or under the surface or subterranean. And definitely about power and wealth and the hoarding of it. And everything to do with. unfair class dynamics and structures and corporate capitalism and oligarchy and like all those

kinds of things. That's a Pluto domain. Those are Pluto issues, we could say. And so because Mars and Pluto are about to get into this battle and the sun stumbles into the room a little bit before they get going, there's like these things that were happening during the week that feel, again, full of friction and also this mounting tension that is about to be fully explained or on view as of Saturday the 26th. So amidst all that, there are these really Saturnian themes. Saturn makes a conjunction with the North Node on Monday. On Wednesday, Venus and the North Node come together, and then on Thursday, Venus and Saturn come together. Basically, Venus, Saturn, and the North Node are all together at 26, 27 degrees of Pisces. So that's a really heightened moment as well,

but it's very different in vibe. Mars and Pluto signal something that honestly is potentially really volatile and even violent. I don't like being an astrologer in moments like this because I don't like even putting that out into the world. But it is the signification of the planet. So I'm not saying that that's what's going to happen. But I am saying the last times that Mars made an opposition to Pluto, there were things, situations on the planet in regards to like the general theme of things that were really tension filled. And brutal acts did take place. So that's just the reality of what happened the last time these two planets came into contact. And also, it doesn't mean that. Like the first time they made an opposition was at the beginning of November, which is when a certain

country, the states, had an election, which, I don't know about you, but felt pretty catastrophic to me and to a lot of people. And turns out to be for the world also. So that's the first time there was an opposition. Mars then stationed retrograde. at the beginning of December. And if you look back and check our timelines at the beginning of December, then you'll have a pretty significant understanding of one of the vibes of the Mars Pluto opposition. It wasn't exactly opposing each other, but that's when Mars stationed retrograde.

And then the last time that Mars and Pluto made that opposition was the beginning of January. It was January 2nd. And unfortunately, that did coincide with some very horrific events that happened in the United States. So, again, I'm not saying that's going to happen again this week, but we know that these setups, Mars, Pluto, oppositions, or squares or conjunctions, they require a lot from us. They can also be about our absolute determination and our grit and our desire to tackle something that is extraordinarily difficult. And if it's Mars and Pluto, Pluto, Pluto,

representing the amassment of wealth in some cases, or we can say that that is one of the things that represents. And then Mars representing a lone ranger of sorts or like the individual or the one who's going to go and like be in the battle, be on the battlefield. Again, it just feels like there's a fighting kind of setup that we're in right now. And that can be all of us. It could be one person. It could be about one person. I was saying in our last episode that the last time Mars was in Leo and at the beginning of December when it stationed retrograde was when Luigi Mangione entered the group chat. So I don't know if something about his case will come about or something pertaining to that moment and what that moment brought to conscious awareness, which is to say,

for one of many things, but for one, the health care system in the United States is so absolutely corrupt and rigged against the people it's supposed to help. And that moment in time, the beginning of December, and all of the events that took place brought that conversation front and center. And it was a very bipartisan conversation. It was a very unifying conversation in a way. So on one hand, Pluto and Aquarius does talk about the people have the power and the amassment of power that we can wake up to when we understand that there are way more of us

than there are one than there are of them. The 1% is 1%. There are 99% of us left over. And if we join forces, like we really could get a lot done. And the job of those that amass power are to make us believe to put us in this kind of hypnosis that we are separate and that we should be fighting and that we fight for them. We do their fighting for them. We remain separate and fractioned off so that they can keep doing all the things that they're doing, i.e. stealing all of our money. And so I'm just wondering if that conversation or if there's

something that happens around the end of April that comes back to this. And again, I have been talking about this for the last couple of weeks. So sorry if this is a repeat. But for those of you that are new to the conversation, I just wanted to lay out some of that structure and that this is the third and final time Mars and Pluto are making that opposition. And so there could be some kind of wrapping up, although life is not that neat and orderly. It's not that. especially when we live inside of so much injustice, it's actually very, very messy and tends to be very cyclical. So I just do think we're going to be picking up on one of those conversations. Maybe it's about the election. Maybe it's about unfair conditions and setups like the pyramid

scheme that is health care in this country and how other countries that have socialized health care are going through a process where the powers that be are trying to gut those systems as well. Right? We can look to Canada. We can look to the UK to see how they're actually trying to privatize health care in those places. They're trying to prove, they're trying to like take away funds or take away what is needed to make that system function and be like, see, it doesn't work. We need to privatize.

So we want to look globally. We want to look worldwide to see like what is happening, who is trying to corporatize? privatize, suck all the money out of a system so that people don't get what they need and remain unfunded, underfunded, underserved. I do think that this Mars Pluto setup does talk about that in a very universal kind of way. So we'll be looking to global politics to see how that kind of plays out. Okay, so that is the one theme that really permeates the last part of April and even the first part of May, because this will keep reverberating. It's a very big deal piece of astrology. And because the sun picks up on it on Sunday the 20th and then Wednesday the 23rd, we just know like we're in it.

And then on Sunday the 27th, so the very end of this week, we have a new moon in Taurus that is in a square to Mars and Pluto. So again, the new moon picks up on what the sun was doing or it's part of what the sun was doing. It's just past the squares, the exact squares, but it's still very folded into this new moon, which in a lot of ways says that we are having a new beginning. We're entering into a new lunation, a new lunar cycle with this awareness. Whatever the Mars Pluto opposition brings us, we'll be moving into this next cycle with. So the new moon and tourist season does bring us in to the first part of May. I know I'm getting ahead of us right now, but May does bring us May Day. It brings us Beltane, which is the celebration of the height of spring. It's

about frolicing. It's about enjoying. And it's also international workers' rights day, which is a very important thing to acknowledge in this moment when fascism is encroaching upon many different nations, many different countries the world over. So I'm really looking to this part of the year to be like, okay, what are people going to do for International Workers Day? What are we doing to celebrate labor unions? What are we doing to celebrate unions or to codify the rights of unions, the rights of workers worldwide. And this week does kind of pick up on that theme from the other side of the astrology,

which is to say Venus making that conjunction to both Saturn and the North Node, they're all coming together at like 26, 27 degrees of Pisces. And that is the other storyline of the week. Venus is about unions. And Venus is exalted in Pisces, meaning it is really in charge of this whole configuration, we could think. And Venus wants, It's connection, union, pleasure, joy, art, beauty, and relationships. So if Saturn wasn't there, I'd be like, oh, the other side of this coin is like the exact opposite of this deep battle that Mars and Pluto are having. It'd be like heightened ecstasy and heightened joy.

But Saturn's in the mix. So Saturn's like, yo, rules, restrictions, commitments, boundaries, what type of relationship is this, how are we actually going to do this? So if we're talking about, I don't know, labor, unions, Workers Day, things of that nature, how we come together, how we build a kind of social consensus, cohesion, then Saturn's like, this is the structure that we need. And the conversation about structure and beauty and commitment and relationships is so magnified this week. it's really stunning to have two planets hovering around the North Node, one fast and one slow. The fast one is Venus, and the slow one is Saturn. So it takes Saturn 28 years-ish to get to the

North Node in Pisces, not the North Node in general, but anyways, it takes 28 years for Saturn to do a full cycle. So it's only once every 28 years or so that Saturn is in Pisces. And to bump up against the North Node and then to have Venus there and to have them all hang out basically at the same time is a special configuration. It's not like the most stunning thing that's happening in 2025, but it's significant. And Venus and Saturn share a sign that they have a very good relationship in. Now, stay with me for a moment because I'm going to get a little in the weeds, astrologically speaking. I just want to talk about the connection between Saturn and Venus. Venus rules Libra. It's at home in Libra. It has its exaltation in Pisces, which is why it's so strong there.

But it rules Libra. Saturn has its exaltation in Libra. So Saturn and Venus share an affinity for Libra, which means that there's something about the nature of both of them that is reflected in each other's archetypes. Saturn is the planet of structure and rules and regulations and commitment. And Venus is the planet of love and pleasure and beauty and connection. Now, it's really hard to create something to make a piece of art, to make a table, to make a house, to make a family, to make an anything without commitment, without an understanding of the structure of something. If you're going to build a house, you can imagine how beautiful you want it to be, which would be the Venus of it all. You can imagine how you want it to be filled with people and friends and family. That's the Venus of it all.

And music and love and food and enjoyment and everything that's like good, that's the Venus of it all. But if you don't understand how to make a foundation and to build the actual like bones and the walls and the plumbing, that's the Saturn of it all. You're never actually going to do it. It's not actually ever going to come about. Or you need the Saturn to give us the structure for the Venus to fill in. it out. And that's the other vibe of this week. So whatever issues come up for you about commitment

this week, I want you to embrace them fully. Whatever issues come up for you in regards to power struggles, I want you to meditate on them deeply because the Mars Pluto is asking us to get to something very subterranean and that something is in part about our power. and about retrieving our power from anything we've projected it onto. So if we think that authority figures, presidents, billionaires have more power than us, like in the grandest scheme of things, we've projected our power, obviously structurally, in some ways they do. But there's a way in which we absolutely, without a doubt, in this moment especially,

need to be like, no, you're not more powerful than me. I am connected to millions of people that know you are not a king. I am reclaiming my power from you. You are a clown and a mirage. And you want me to buy in to the whole theatrics of this thing. And I won't do it. That's part of the Mars Pluto, like reclaim our power from the thing and see what we can actually do.

do to make a change to dismantle that kind of amassment of power. Energetically, creatively, boycotting, reclaiming our money from institutions and businesses and people that do not have our best at heart or in mind. And then the other side of this is like, I want love, I want connection, I want union, I want beauty. I want art. I want pleasure. I need to be dedicated to the things that will bring that about for me. I need to be disciplined. I need to make sure that I make plans, call my people, make sure I do the things that bring me joy. I can let the world steer me in all the wrong directions or I can be like, no, I'm not letting you have my Saturday or my afternoons or my morning or

The moments before I go to sleep, like, what are the boundaries I need to put down? Or what are the commitments I need to set? Or what are the things that I need to reclaim that will ultimately bring me a sense of connection and understanding of how to actually build relationship and union and solidarity? What does solidarity actually mean in this world? What do I need to commit to? What are the ways in which I need to be engaging with the people, the places, the activities? that help me to love deeper, be a better friend, be a better citizen, be a better partner,

parent, family member, fill in the blank. Okay, today's Ask Me Anything is a question that is about nodal returns. The question is nodal returns. I have my north node in Pisces. I don't understand what it means. So those are two different questions. Let's talk about it. They're both long questions. A of all, a nodal return is when the nodes, like the north node comes back to the place it was when you were born and the south node comes back to the place it was when you were born. The nodes are just points in space. They are always, always, always, always 180 degrees away from each other. So it is the hungry head of the dragon is the north node, we think, we say. That's what the ancient said. And the south node is the tail of the dragon. And they are places where eclipses

happen when there's a new moon or a full moon that is within about, I think, 16 degrees of the node, of that point in space, there will be an eclipse. So the nodes are points in space where eclipses occur when a new moon or a full moon happens around them. Eclipse has happened every six months and the nodes are very significant in your chart because of the nature of eclipses. Eclipses are catalystic times. They are catastrophic times. They signal times where things begin and the end. They are times of great change and where the energy is very disrupted, right? Think of the light going out and the light coming back on. So the nodes represent these places of great change and the north node in our chart represents a place of great hunger and desire. The south node in our chart represents a place of great hunger and desire. The south node in our chart, represents a place where we are more prone to be giving something away, where we are less attached, where we are able to let go or where we experience a lot of loss. And in the beginning of our life, it can be a lot of loss. And then as we grow into ourselves and our chart and life,

it can be a place of great acceptance. That's more of a traditional type of point of view. Modern astrology relates the north node, I believe, I'm not a modern astrologer, but I believe they relate the north node to where we're going in this lifetime and the south node to what we've overdone in this lifetime. That's what I used to believe when I did modern astrology. And if that works for you, great. I would just like you to add on this other layer of information and a different way to see the nodes, which is wherever the north node is in your chart is where you are going to be rapacious. It is where you're going to be ravenous. It is where you are going to be never satisfied.

It is a hunger that is relentless. Now, the north node, and I think also the south node, I'm going to make a case for the south in a second, but in a very different way. When the north end is like in the first house, the house of self, your rising sign, it symbolizes somebody who's got a big appetite for life, for being known, for success, for something, right? There is a desire to do something. The hungry head of the dragon is always with you. So a lot of people that are famous do you have that signature. Not everybody, but when I see it, whether or not that person is like a celebrity doesn't really matter. There's a desire to be

known because it's the first house of self. And then there are also different astrologies and astrologers that will say, like, if you have the North Node in a very close or like exact, so within the same degree-ish, give or take a degree or two, of a trine with the ascendant, that's also like a big mark of desire. And I would say like a sextile is a little less powerful, a square's pretty powerful and then opposition means that you've got the south node on your ascendant. So remember, there are always, there are two sides of one thing. So the south node, like say you have the south node in the first house, that always denotes someone who's really willing to be easy, breezy, or is just really easy, breezy, or really just like lets things go, lets things roll off

their back or seemingly does, right? Like there's always something that we're trying to hold on to. But there's this thing with the south node. Like if you have the south node around a certain planet, like if you have Sun's South node or a South node in your first house, there's going to be this vibe of like, yeah, man, it's totally cool. Like I'm good. I don't need it. You can have it. Because there's this desire to be releasing everything. Like I don't want to attain too much stuff. stuff, it's thought of as kind of a spiritual signature because there's a non-attachment type of vibe that is connected or we could connect with the south node. But the nodes south or north are still connected to eclipses, which are volatile, really like activating phenomenon and astrological

events. So if the south node is by someone's sun or moon or in the first house or 10th house or somewhere really prominent in the chart, it's still going to bring, and then it also, anyways, it means that the North Node is connected to it as well. So depending on what I just said, where yours is, there's still this energy that's attached. So the North Node in the first house or in the 10th house, let's say, is really activating in terms of like wanting to amass a lot of fill in the blank or wanting to really be known or being very, desirous of something that is connected to having many experiences. Maybe that's being known by a lot of people or just being in like wild experiences. Like you just come, like things just happen to you

that are kind of like, what is that? Now, that's going to be like very north node. South Node, if you have South Node somewhere really prominent, there's still going to be this very activating force, but your approach to it, again, if it's in the first house or 10th house or by your son or another like major planet in your chart, the South Node is going to give you more of like a, yeah, this crazy thing happened. I don't know, whatever. It's cool. It's not a big deal. You know, like I can let it go, kind of thing. But if the North or South Node are in prominent places in your chart, again, especially first house or 10th house, or connected, by trine or sextile or square to your ascendant, especially if it's exactly conjunct to your

ascendant, then, or mid-heaven or, you know, anything to do with like these major points in your chart or especially your sun, your moon. I would say like any of the personal planets, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Saturn. The outer planets are still very significant, but it's a little less personal. The quicker moving planets are always going to be like a, whoa, you've got Venus conjunct the south node. Like that's huge. That's a, that's a startling mark for me. So there's that thing. It's like, if the south node is by a planet, then I'm going to really want to investigate what the nature of that planet is and then the meaning of the south node being about letting go releasing or if it's by the north node, I'm going to want to investigate what that planet is,

what it does and this desire that can never be fulfilled and never be satiated. If you don't have anything near the north or south node, great, fine. That's not an issue. But you want to know what house in your chart it occupies. And that will tell you everything. Like, yes, the sign it's in is important to some degree. But really, we want to know what house is your North Node in because that's where you're going to be ferocious. What house is your South Node in? That's where you might experience a loss, but that's also where you can experience a great amount of peace once you do the work of like coming to terms with the fact that everything comes and everything goes in life. Like we don't control anything. The South Knows

teaches us how to like release and relinquish our desire to control, at least momentarily. And the South Node shows us where we're going to want to give a lot. lot, what we're going to want to release a lot of. So say if you have the South Note in the 11th House, you're going to want to give a lot to the group. You're going to want to put out a lot to the audience. You're going to want to give a lot to your friends. You're going to want to be a channel of support in some way, shape, or form for the collectives that you're a part of. If you have the North Node in the 11th House, you're going to want to have a lot of friends. You're going to want to do a lot of things with the group. You're going to want to be Mayor of Mayor Town, possibly, depending on the rest

of your chart, but there's this big desire for friendship and there's a big desire for group work and there's a big desire for collective action and probably also activism or could be activism. So if you have the North Node in Pisces, it means that it's in the part of your chart that contains Pisces. And that's what I really want you to focus on. The North Node in Pisces can have a huge hunger for escapism and fantasy and also just a massive. creative capacity. Pisces is a very creative, very compassionate sign or a sign that is about creativity and compassion and oneness. So there's a desire to escape sometimes, but also a desire to experience oneness, a desire to demonstrate compassion and a desire to connect to many people

and many things and many experiences. And Pisces wants to experience everything. So there might be a big desire to experience all of life all the time all around you and just like revel around, roll around in all of it to be part of everything. It's not very discerning. So there's a big desire to like have a wide array of experiences. When you have a nodal return, it means the nodes have come back to where they were when you were born, which means that there are eclipses in the signs that they were happening in around the time. that you were born. If you were born during an eclipse, that's a whole other thing. I have a video on that. But we experience a nodal return about once every 19 years. So it's a marker of time.

And it's saying, okay, the parts of your chart that are home to your North and South Node are getting reactivated again. And so this is an important moment for you because it will wake up the part of you that's super hungry for something and it will also teach you something really important about what you're here to heal. That's the South Node. That's what we're here to heal. The North Note is what we're here to understand about our hunger and our desires that, again, will never be satiated. What do we do with desires that are never satiated? Well, one of the things we do is we don't let them have the last word because they will have us forever on a hamster wheel. but we do allow them to propel us into our creativity. We do allow our desires to help to motivate us

towards something, but we have to balance that with being in deep acceptance of what is. And also knowing when we're full, like, I'm good. I know I could keep eating this cake, but it'll also pain me. And so I'm going to just practice satiation, even if I don't necessarily. necessarily feel like that because if I never satiated, then I'm never going to enjoy what I have. If we stay with the North Node too much, we're always just going to be forever wanting more. If we only stay with the South Node, we're not going to be spurred into action to go do the great things that we're here to do. So it's about the balance of both the North and South node in our chart. All right, y'all. Thank you so much for joining. I'm sending you all the love,

all the blessings. Come back. Next week, we'll talk about Venus moving back into Aries, hot topics, really good for galvanizing us into action and making its first ever in our lifetime conjunction to Neptune in Ares and the dreamy wildfires that can come about through that connection. All right. Sending you tons of love, many, many, many, many, many blessings, many new moon blessings. even amidst a Mars Pluto opposition, let's get very dogged about what we are beginning. Let's be determined. Let's be very clear about what we are here to win, what we cannot fail on, which is basically being in our integrity and doing everything we possibly can to bring about the world.

We know we need and deserve. Sending you lots of love. Bye for now.